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Sorry for the mini-gap in posts this week guys. The GIR and I are enjoying a post-convention respite and are aiming to make the most of the summer before it comes to its unofficial end tomorrow. Ugh, that last clause was so disheartening to write. How is the summer over already? Anyhow, there's plenty in the way of geeky news to distract ourselves with, so let's get down to it.

Comics

In news that makes my inner 5-year-old squeal: in celebration of her 30th anniversary, She-Ra will be returning to the world of comics. The Princess of Power will be joining the ranks of the Masters of the Universe this October.

Grayskull is about to get a bit more badass

After 75 years of playing the love interest to the Man of Steel, Lois Lane is getting her own moment in the proverbial sun. Next January the intrepid reporter will star in her own young adult novel (which is already available for pre-order on Amazon).

Team Meat, the 2-person studio behind the infamously difficult semi-eponymous platformer Super Meat Boy has decided that enhancements to their trademark game, namely bringing it to mobile gaming platforms, will be their focus for the short-to-medium term. This is sad news for those of us who'd been waiting for their absurdist mad science cat-breeding sim Mew-Genics. While Team Meat was quick to assure their fans that Mew-Genicshas not been cancelled, it'll be a while before we can create ourselves the perfect diabolical feline companion.

Add the Tick to the growing roster of prematurely cancelled TV series given new life by digital streaming platforms. Amazon confirmed on Friday that they will be producing and hosting a fresh season of the cult-hit superhero parody and that original lead Patrick Warburton will reprise his starring role.

While one show gets new life, another is sent off to the great database in the sky. Wil Wheaton and the Syfy Network have both confirmed that the Wil Wheaton Projecthas been cancelled after a 12-episode run. The Syfy Network has yet to state which show will fill Wheaton's time slot.

A cadre of Star Trek cast members were on hand at last week's Wizard World Chicago Comic Con and they took advantage of their communal attendance with this group picture:

Science/Technology

There's no question that the runaway star of this summer's biggest movie is a miniature Ent with a vocabulary only slightly more nuanced than that of Hodor. Groot is beloved, imitated, and replicated as an adorable desk toy, but is it possible for this sentient flora to exist beyond the confines of our communal creative processes? Daniel Chemovitz of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences aims to find out.

The interwebs have given us countless ways to interact, express ourselves, and even make a living. Check out these internet-based careers that you may not have known existed.

While we're on the subject of ingestible molecules with surprising health benefits, scientists at the UA Steele Children's Research Center believe that you should add curcumin to that roster. Their research indicates that curcumin, one of the components of the cooking spice tumeric, may play an important role in hindering the development of colon cancer.

Woo for a return to a normal publishing schedule! Part of me refuses to believe that it's already been a week since Gen Con 2014 drew to a close, but the rest of me is quick to point out just how exhausted the GIR and I were and how it's taken the better part of the past seven days to get our HP and Mana levels back to full. Now that the con-inspired sleep deprivation has been rectified, we can tuck into the backlog left by the Steam Summer Sale as well as the fresh-from-the-con board game purchases. <<pats poor bedraggled wallet>>

Also, in a bout of what I'm going to call euphoric madness left over from the Gen Con cloud of woot, I've actually started to lay out concrete plans for next year's costumes. It wouldn't be the first time that the con-happy has inspired productivity. No, I haven't started construction just yet, but plans are definitely in the works. Future posts will give all the pertinent details but, if this comes together as I hope it will, I'll need all the time I can get. In the interim, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.

Have you ever tried to recall the point at which a superhero leaped from the pages of his or her comic book and onto the big screen? Well, this extremely detailed infographic will give you an answer to your powered up pondering.

Games

On Thursday, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) released its annual report on user demographics for computer and video games. For the first time since the ESA started compiling this data, adult women outranked boys under the age of 18 as the largest demographic among gamers. While this seems like it would be a truly groundbreaking finding, the methodology used in the survey is not the most precise (e.g. it counts 7 different expansions of the Sims 3 as 7 different games and doesn't count download purchases, like those via Steam, at all). In short, you'll see a lot of this report being bandied about, but it doesn't begin to provide an accurate illustration of the gaming community.

This technically happened last week, but it was too important to not include in this post. Sega Genesis turned 25 years old and here are some of the many reasons why it shaped our gaming careers.

Blizzard has confirmed that there will be a multifaceted NPCcoded into the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor, that will be an active tribute to the late Robin Williams. One of the models associated with this NPC is rumored to be a djinn and...man it's dusty in here...

And we’re back! By all accounts
Gen Con was a solid all-around experience. Demos were played, tournament spoils
were won, friends were made, dungeons were conquered, and costumes were on
display at just about every turn. There were a few bumps, which we’ll get to in
a bit, but by and large it was a wonderful con. In keeping with all the other convention round-ups featured on the blog, I’ll tackle the goings-on at Gen Con
by publisher, then give overarching feedback on the con as a whole. So, without
further ado…

Fantasy Flight Games (FFG)

Powerhouse publisher Fantasy
Flight adopted what I’ll term the PAX East methodology and released a series of
major announcements in the days immediately preceding Gen Con. Arguably the most
sensational of these press snippets was news that FFG would have a playable demo
of XCOM: the Board Game in Indy. Unsurprisingly,
the wait times to get in on such a demo stretched over multiple hours, but I
was finally able to snag a seat on Sunday. So, does it live up to the hype?

Abso-friggin-lutely.

Never in my life has a board game
elicited such an intense, visceral reaction just from what are ostensibly its
standard mechanics. While the iconography used on the board and the various
components are directly ported from XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the actual gameplay and resulting player engagement feels
like it was wrought from X-COM: UFO Defense. Players assume one of four available roles to govern a specific
aspect of either base management or XCOM relations with external factions. The
order and degree to which these roles influence play is guided and dictated by
the free downloadable companion app which provides both structure and anxiety.
Only the base commander has access to the app and must relay the information it
provides to his or her fellow players. This most commonly takes the form of a
countdown. It’ll be, “Chief Scientist, you have 15 seconds to act…10…5…0. Squad
Leader, you have 60 seconds to assign soldiers to missions and base defense.”

It will get your heart pounding
while simultaneously breaking it in a way that’s all too familiar to players of
the source games. XCOM: the Board Game
accommodates 1-4 players and is scheduled to be available in the fourth quarter
of this year.

- The other merited-hours-of-wait-time-for-the-demo
title was Star Wars: Imperial Assault.
Think the best parts of Star Wars: Epic
Duels made both broader and deeper. 2-5 players find themselves in the
midst of a series of skirmishes directly tied to the events immediately
following the Battle of Yavin. Each player takes on a specific role either as
part of the Rebel Alliance or the Imperial forces threatening to annihilate
them. The game can also be played Epic Duels style with two players going
head-to-head. The game itself is entirely self-contained, with both the
campaign and duel modes included in the base set, and is slated to arrive in
your local game store in early 2015.

- The addictive spacefaring
adventure Star Wars: X-Wing Minis is
getting even more robust with the addition of a new faction: bounty hunters.
Five new ships (in addition to the capital-class Slave I) make up the Scum and Villainy set of expansions. The
Most Wanted expansion includes three
new ships (one is a basic Y-Wing with a custom paint job) while the remaining
entrants in the Scum and Villainy
lineup are one-off, self-contained sets. All of the ships will be available for
purchase in the fourth quarter of this year. As a related aside on capital-class ships, I got a chance to play with a full contingent of them during one of my X-Wing tournaments and can confidently
say that they add a whole new dimension to the base game.

- While we're on the subject of capital-class ships, get ready for many more of those as they are the focal point for Star Wars: Armada. It's effectively the next evolutionary step for X-Wing, adding a number of enhancements to a now-familiar set of base mechanics. While the two games are not inherently compatible, it's fairly easy for an X-Wing player to pick up the jist of Armada. Additionally, you can add individual capital-class ships to your X-Wing game using the latter's Epic Rules. This two-player tactical title is scheduled for a release date in early 2015.

- The beta for the third and
final installment of FFG’s gargantuan Star Wars RPG system, Force and Destiny, will be open in the
very near future. Click here to check out the rulebook for the beta and sign up to submit your feedback. The other two thirds of the system (Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion) will be getting new
fully scoped campaign sets.

- FFG is beginning its foray into digital gaming with BattleLore: Command. The tactical combat game is designed primarily for mobile use (on both Android and iOS), but can be played on a PC as well. It will be available for download in the fourth quarter of this year.

Paizo

The maker of Pathfinder seemed keen to participate in what was definitely the
overarching trend of the con: melding digital and tabletop gaming. Just hours
before doors opened, Paizo announced that it would be partnering with Obsidian Entertainment (the guys behind Fallout:
New Vegas andPillars of Eternity) and that the latter party would be producing several all-electronic
versions of Paizo’s titles. First on the docket will be a mobile-based version
of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.
While there was an early prototype of the game on hand at the extremely crowded
Paizo booth, no release date has been assigned to the project.

In what was certainly no surprise
to those familiar with Pathfinder, Paizo took home a sizable number of Ennie Awards during the con including Best Interior Art, Best Cover Art, Best
Cartography, Best Free Product, Best Minis, Best Monster/Adversary, Best RPG,
and Best Supplement.

Wizards of the Coast (WotC)

For Wizards, the con was pretty
much all 5th Edition all
the time. That’s not to say that the proverbial staples of Neverwinter and Magic: the
Gathering were absent, far from it, just that 5th Edition predictably took center stage. Fans of Neverwinter were rewarded with the news of a new expansion, Tyranny of Dragons.

Additionally, as part of the
celebrations surrounding the 40th birthday of Dungeons &
Dragons, WotC released details concerning the D&D anniversary tribute
audiobook. Said book, The Legend of
Drizzt, is a compilation of 12 stories about, you guessed it, the life and
times of everyone’s favorite drow. Longtime Forgotten Realms author R.A.
Salvatore provides the text while a cadre of celebrities lend their voices to
the project. The book is available for free download here on Audible until
September 20th.

Mayfair Games

As the leading sponsor of the
con, Mayfair was just about everywhere you turned. Its logo was draped over
doorways, its sheep loomed large over the demo hall, and its van was a fixture
amongst the food trucks parked just outside. While it certainly commanded
attention simply by virtue of those things, Mayfair went the extra mile and
hosted what was arguably the most talked about event of the convention by
taking the once entirely fictional euro-parody Cones of Dunshire from the NBC show Parks and Recreation (which is set in Indiana) and making it real. The event allegedly sold out in mere seconds and garnered over $20,000 USD, which
Mayfair then donated to Gleaner’s Food Bank, the official charity partner of Gen
Con.

Asmadi Games

Asmadi had a considerable presence at Gen Con derived more than a little bit from their very own room located directly across from the dealer hall. Said room was the site of many a demo, but also an equal number of absurd and hilarious events including We Didn't Playtest This Resistance Movement At All and the Ridiculympics. The Playtest mashup actually came in several different flavors and met with rave reviews. We also got to see the newest incarnation of Consequential, which has been a long time in the making and looks better than ever!

Flying Frog Productions

Flying Frog made sure to put one of the most highly anticipated Kickstarters of 2013 front and center in their booth. Shadows of Brimstone seemed to live up to every ounce of the hype surrounding it, successfully combining the feel of Eldrich Horror with a distinctly western air.

Indie Pubishers

We talked earlier about the meshing of digital and physical components to create new gaming experiences, but World of Yo-Ho by Volumique sought
to take that combination in the most literal way possible. In this fantasy turn-based pirate-themed game your phone is both a source of information and your pawn.
The fast-paced play can be modified into either a one-shot experience or an
ongoing campaign. Keep an eye out for their Kickstarter, which is set to open
in October.

Gen Con 2014 saw the fruition of several Kickstarter projects we've featured on the blog over the past few years. Thrash-Car made its official debut just a few weeks after going through the final stages of production and Call of Catthulhu was one of the more talked about titles out of the indie publishers.

One of the runaway hits of Gen Con was a nondescript little table off to the side of the Mayfair portion of the demo hall. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes was an ingenious use of the geeky love of solving puzzles, teamwork, and an Oculus Rift. One or more team members sat across from their compatriot wearing a set of Oculus goggles. The be-goggled individual then had a number of minutes (usually 5-6) to describe the components of a bomb depicted by the Rift. Those teammates outside the Rift were left to frantically page through a binder of decryptions and walk their colleague through the process of defusing the bomb.

We also did two separate True Dungeon runs (surviving one and literally crashing and burning in the other). While the monsters were no more or less impressive than in previous years, the props and effects used in some of the puzzles were jaw-dropping. One puzzle involved motion projection onto a table filled with kinetic sand while the intricacies of a steampunk 'fueling tower' had us shaking our heads as we guessed how long it must have taken to build.

While the overall experience was wonderful, the huge draw of Gen Con was palpable. The official attendance number was listed at 56,614, which is an increase of 15.4% year-over-year. There was talk that the convention could expand into the adjoining Lucas Oil Stadium to accommodate future conventions, but what will need to take precedence is the provision of more housing. Though it was often extremely crowded, it appeared as though local businesses were prepared for the nerdy onslaught. So there were lines aplenty, but little danger of not finding something great at the other end.

Finally, all the costumes turned out as well as I could have hoped they would. The last few days leading up to the con were far more stressful than they should have been after the artist I'd commissioned my trident from overreached on the scope of our project and almost didn't finish it. After a flurry of very late night emails and a lot of crossed fingers, the trident arrived with only hours to spare. While it turned out beautifully, I can't say that I'd use that artist again.

The costumes themselves were very well received. There was some minor difficulty getting the GIR's wings to behave and stiletto heels are always a challenge to walk in, but the experience was very positive. All three outfits even made it onto io9! For more pictures, check out our social media pages. Until next time Indy!

We’re only a few days out from
the trek to Indianapolis and the preparations are in full swing. Bags are being
packed, wings are being shipped, and dice are itching to be rolled. It’s a
whole lot of hurry up and wait in conjunction with periodically reassuring
myself that no, there isn’t more work to be done on a costume. It somehow
manages to be both anxiety and relief simultaneously. This feeling is also probably due to the fact that, as we've mentioned before, Murphy's Law tends to be on in full force when it comes to cosplay.

The very minute that the GIR and
I decided to do a Venture Bros. tribute cosplay there was no doubt in my mind as to which character I’d be
dressing as. I’ve always found villainesses to be more interesting and engaging
than their female protagonist counterparts. They always seemed to have
the best set of powers, were usually smart/ambitious, and exuded confidence.
Plus they tended to have minions! Who wouldn’t want minions? Needless to say,
more than one adult found my childhood adoration for Maleficent to be a bit off
putting. Given that, and my obsession affection for the Venture Bros.,Sheila was a shoe-in. Her Dr. Mrs. the Monarch
outfit is my personal favorite of the various iterations of Sheila and the
thought was that costume would coordinate well with the GIR’s.

The Dr. Mrs. the Monarch outfit
was fun to make but, though it’s pretty straightforward from a construction
standpoint, I’ll admit that it was the first costume I underestimated. A large
chunk of the difficulties I experienced stemmed directly from my inability to
draw. Seriously, I have absolutely zero abilities when it comes to drawing and
any related field. The rest of my troubles were derived from certain fabrics
and certain paints not wanting to play nicely together, which I didn’t realize until
it came time to introduce them to one another. We’ll get to all this in a
minute though (so hopefully you can avoid these issues). Despite this, my
difficulties were ultimately minor and they definitely shouldn’t scare you off
of this project, which is very approachable even for neophyte cosplayers.

Dr. Mrs. the Monarch wears a
black leotard with a very distinctive neckline, long yellow gloves, thigh-high
yellow boots, a geometric choker style necklace, and a little 4-pronged crown (sometimes 5-pronged depending on the episode). Each
of the elements in that list is pretty simple in terms of the execution, minus
the painting part (if you’re artistically illiterate like me). Let’s look at
each of these components.

Bodysuit

We can’t be 100% sure that the
foundation for Dr. Mrs.’ costume is a leotard versus a bodysuit, so you’re
probably still within canon if you choose either one of those, as long as you
select a garment that is jet black. Black leotards are generally pretty
inexpensive and can be found in both sporting goods stores as well as major
online retailers like Amazon. Alternatively, you could make a custom
leotard/bodysuit using a pattern like this or this (4-way stretch fabric is
highly recommended!).

I was operating under the idea
that the leotard should have a bit of sheen to it and not just be a standard
matte fabric. This isn’t required by any means though, so don’t feel as if you
need to limit yourself to PVC or a ‘wet look’ vinyl. After a bit of research, I patterned a bodysuit on this. I really liked the functionality that a bodysuit
offered and recommend going that route if you’re planning on being in costume
for more than 4-5 hours at a time.

As mentioned above, the neckline
on the bodysuit is…unorthodox. It plunges into a deep V in the front (ending a
few finger widths above the bellybutton) and dips into a softer, but still
substantial scoop in the back (ending just below the bottom of where the band
of your bra usually falls). Since you’re almost certainly working with stretchy
fabric, you need to work on the bodysuit using the dimensions that it will be
when it’s on your body, which are usually quite different than those when it’s
lying about. To ensure accurate cuts, I put on the bodysuit and drew the
desired termination points in chalk. Chalk shows up beautifully on black
fabric, but is easily washed or dabbed away when you don't need it anymore. After
that, it was a matter of sketching out the cuts using my t-square and more
chalk, then cutting along the lines.

Once the neckline had been
shaped, I put the bodysuit on my dress form and applied a stencil I’d made
using an exacto knife and a blown up printout of this image of the Monarch logo.
Hopefully helpful hint: before the bodysuit, I put a bra on my dress form and
padded the bra out so it’d hold the shape of what my curves would look like as
I intended them to appear in costume (since the dress form doesn’t have much in
that department). Again, this is about making sure that what you cut and paint
will look exactly as you intend it to when you’re wearing it.

Here’s where things ended up
taking more time than I’d planned; the fabric I used for the bodysuit didn’t
take paint very well. The component of the cloth that gave it such a nice,
subtle sheen also formed a barrier against paint, so I ended up having to go
over the logo several times in order to obtain solid, even color throughout. I repeated the same basic process with a
different fabric for the design on the back. Despite this, I do recommend using
fabric paint for the emblems rather than colored tape or fabric. Paint gives
you quite a bit more leeway (when compared to tape or fabric) in terms of how
it can be shaped on a stretchy surface. Just give yourself a few days of buffer
when you start the painting process in case you run into similar difficulties.

The stencil

First pass with the fabric paint (you can see how unevenly it took)

Six coats of paint later and the logo looked solid.

After the designs had been
painted, I edged the entire neckline with thin strips of this yellow PVC fabric.
The PVC is great in that it tends to stretch well, but can be tricky to work
with as it’s prone to curling in on itself. Some patience and a good rotary
blade go a long way in taming the PVC.

The only thing remaining at this
point were the ‘wings’. Dr. Mrs. the Monarch sports a pair of flowy,
transparent orange wings on the back of her bodysuit that drape down her back
and trail behind her like a train. To achieve the same look, I folded this chiffon
(in ‘flame’) in half and carefully cut long strips that expanded out to an
oblong-ish shape at the ends. Since chiffon made from synthetic fabric has a
bad habit of fraying, I coated the edges of the wings with clear nail polish.
While a French seam would have been a better solution, I found that a second
layer of the chiffon added too much weight and opacity, so I kept the wings to
a single layer and used the polish.

The wings hang almost on the
vertical part of the back portion of the neckline right at the shoulders. First
I tacked them to both the bodysuit and the PVC lining with fabric glue, then
added a few reinforcing stiches at the corners and the center. Whether the
wings actually reach the floor behind you is a personal choice. Canonically,
they act like a train so I had them trail a few inches behind me. Of course,
there are a number of problems associated with having what is functionally a
train at a convention, so you may decide it’s just not worth the potential
headache to make the wings quite so long.

Crown/Necklace/Earrings

Both the crown and the choker
necklace can be made very easily. I ended up making both from bits of craft
foam that had originally been sold as other items: the necklace began its life
as a visor and the crown was, at one point, a little pail. While you can
definitely use standard sheets of craft foam to make these, I found it to be
easier and actually cheaper to re-shape the two items. I removed the head strap
from the visor, then trimmed the foam down until it took on that pointy
triangular shape that’s depicted in the show. The pail got squished in half,
then I traced half-circles at intervals on the foam using the bottom of a
coffee mug as a stencil. A few cuts along the traced lines and viola, perfectly
symmetrical crown-like tines. I affixed a single 3/8” (0.95cm) round wooden
bead to the peaks of each of the tines with some hot glue, then reinforced the
tines with some mid-gauge floral wire.

After all that shaping, it was
time for some paint. Some standard yellow spray paint left the two accessories
a uniform color and a coat of spray varnish lent everything a bit of polish.
Finally, I cut out a portion of the bottom of the once-pail-now-crown and added
a small lattice made from pieces of floral wire embedded in the foam and
reinforced with hot glue (which you can see in the third picture down in the above sequence). The idea behind the lattice was to give bobby pins
and other wig/hair clips somewhere to grip on to.

As for the earrings, Dr. Mrs.
wears simple round yellow studs in each ear, so I picked up a cheap pair in a
hue similar to the spray paint from a local Claire’s.

Boots/Gloves

If I hadn’t come across an
amazing sale on these, I would have made both the gloves and the boots (or at
least covers approximating the look of boots) from a 4-way stretch fabric. But
Milanoo.com was offering their own version of yellow PVC boots for an absurdly
low price, so I snapped up a pair of those and a set of matching shoulder-length PVC gloves which the site no longer carries.

Post Construction update: Remember my earlier mention of Murphy's Law? Well, Murphy took the form of some very hot summer days and acted out against my poor PVC gloves. I'd stored them next to the wet look fabric that I'd used for the bodysuit and apparently the heat was enough to fuse the two together, leaving black streaks all over the gloves that not even a Magic Eraser could tackle. I ended up ordering the shiny satin opera gloves from Amazon and painted the PVC boots a lighter shade of yellow to match. In case you go a similar route for whatever reason, PVC takes acrylic paint extremely well!

Wig

Unless you happen to have short
black hair, you’re probably going to need a wig to emulate Sheila’s curled bob.
I went with this, then shaped it using a comb, this hair wax, and this hair gel. Since the wig was designed to curl at the ends, it was pretty easy to coax
it into the canonical hairdo.

Since the length of the wig is
quite short, a wig cap is a necessity (check out this post on wigs for more
information on caps and why they’re good to use).

Defying Gravity (all the
underthings)

Ok, so it’s no secret that one of
the most eye-catching features of Dr. Mrs. the Monarch is her prominent,
seemingly physics-defying décolletage. For a non-animated human subjected to
things like gravity, it can be very tricky to attain the same look. The angle
and extent of the V-shaped neckline precludes the wearing of most standard
undergarments (since they’d be readily visible). There are a couple of ways to
negotiate this somewhat awkward situation.

Option 1 is to go the route
pioneered by professional cosplayer and Heroes of Cosplay alumnus Riki LeCotey
and make a custom bodice from plastic or a similarly rigid material. Unless you’re
proficient at plastic or resin casting, the easiest way to make this is to
purchase a torso mannequin like this one and, using a plastics saw or very
sharp utility knife, carefully cut out the desired shape.

If you’d rather not cast a piece
or re-shape a mannequin, there’s always Option 2. Option 2 involves stick on
lingerie like this. I was going to attempt Option 1, but came across a set of
adhesive silicone cups while at a craft store and, with the help of some double-sidedfashion tape, found that they performed surprisingly well. As with anything
else that goes on your skin, it’s always a good idea to test the adhesives on
the cups/tape about two weeks or more before the convention.

And that completes the costume
trousseau for Gen Con 2014. Adieu for now guys; see you in a week or so when I’m
back from Indy!

Post-Con Breakdown: I'll probably wear this costume again, but will start over with a new leotard as the fabric not only didn't play nicely with the fabric paint, but also didn't like to stay put against my skin. The wings, boots, and props held up extremely well and can be re-used with minimal touch ups.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend thus far. You can probably guess that the past week has been chock-full of costume construction. Fortunately, all that is now 100% complete so I can get down to packing and studying up on the Epic rules for Star Wars: the X-Wing Miniatures Game. I've got two miniatures tourneys on the Gen Con schedule and need to fit all the practice I can into the next 2-3 days. In the meantime, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.

Movies

Revisiting franchises is the name of the cinematic game as of late, but one property that hasn't gotten the reboot treatment is Galaxy Quest. Turns out, that might not be true forever. Earlier this week it was confirmed that a script for a sequel does exist.

While we're talking about reboots, let's chat for a minute about the fact that J. Michael Straczynski, creator of the cult TV series Babylon 5, is personally leading the charge to turn his brainchild into a major motion picture.

It's a question that has been bandied about since the publication of the Lord of the Rings trilogy: Why didn't the members of the Fellowship just fly to Mount Doom on the giant eagles? This amusingly illustrated fan theory seeks to provide a definitive answer.

Designer Michael Tyznik hopes you'll be able to better navigate the geography of the continents in the Song of Ice and Fire series with the help of these subway maps he drew up.

Have you ever wanted to run your own particle accelerator? This simple-but-addictive click game from the gaming lab at CERN can help assuage your cravings for atom smashing. (In other news, there is a gaming studio at CERN.)

As fun as costume construction is,
at this point near the very end it can be nice to fit in a few breaks from the
sewing, painting, and continuous battles with the hot glue gun. There are few
better respites from nerdy crafting, or just from the daily grind, than the
latest cinematic offering from Marvel.

Yeah, I heard Guardians of the Galaxy was completely crazy. Is it
actually as nuts as people say it is?

Definitely, but in the best
possible way (if that even makes sense). Guardians of the Galaxy is fundamentally
insane, completely absurd, and a raucously good time filled with plenty of
moments that will likely have you laughing out loud. It’s so entirely out there
in both the premise and the execution that you can’t help but admire Marvel for
actually making it happen. In a world where major studios balk at the idea of
making a superhero movie with a female lead because it’s ‘too tricky’, Marvel
looked through its roster, saw a property starring an anthropomorphic raccoon
and tree, and said, ‘why not?’ You can almost picture Marvel looking over at DC
with a smirk that says, “Look at all the fun they’re having; see how much they
love this. Good luck with your faux-Nolan unrelenting grimness thing.”

And having fun is definitely the
end-goal with Guardians. To use the
same description I ascribed to Pacific Rim, it’s what Saturday morning cartoons wish they would grow up to be. To
that effect, your best bet is to go into the theater with the expectation that Guardians will be all the best parts of
popcorn fodder: explosions, extended combat sequences, stunning backdrops,
high-speed chases, and snarky one-liners by the bucket load.

Given that description, you can
probably garner that Guardians isn’t
exactly masterful in the realms of exposition or logical consistency. A
significant part of that is due to the labyrinth that is the source material,
specifically the long and often convoluted backstory of Star-Lord/Peter Quill. It
can be difficult to distill a comic narrative that features a large ensemble
cast and spans forty-five years down into something that can be readily
consumed in a scant two hours. This shows in the threadbare introductions
that we get to some of the characters and locations. Additionally, the frantic
pace of the film forces a number of ‘convenient’ outcomes, occurrences, and
conclusions in order to maintain momentum. While these are numerous, they
definitely don’t detract from the overall experience and are no more egregious
than what you’d expect in a summer blockbuster. There’s also at least one instance
where this works in the film’s favor, leaving the audience to be as suspicious
of the character Gamora as her new compatriots initially find her to be.

The story is drawn from the 2008 relaunch
of the Guardians of the Galaxy comic arc, but adds in a handful of characters
from earlier editions and other incarnations of the series. It boils down to a
standard ‘hero finds powerful ancient artifact; villains want said artifact;
the fate of the universe lies with the outcome of the resulting conflict.’
Nothing revolutionary in terms of narrative, but the tale is maybe a tertiary
consideration when you’re watching the movie. Maybe. The cast and the
chemistry between them more than atone for any lapses in the telling of their
adventures. Also, despite the lackluster exposition, the audience finally gets a cursory education in the Infinity Gems (Stones in the movie), which we've seen a lot of throughout the cinematic Marvelverse but haven't been any definitive clues as to what they are. The fact that Guardians manages to provide effective cliff notes for a concept as complex as the Infinity Gems and how they tie in to the other Marvel movies is a small feat in itself.

The characters themselves are all
well portrayed by the actors that play them, but some roles have noticeably
more substance than others. Chris Pratt is, effectively,
Peter-Quill-Trying-To-Be-Star-Lord. His effortless brand of devil-may-care
charm makes him immediately likeable and a spot on match for his
two-dimensional counterpart. More thanone outletmakes the comparison between
Quill and a certain other smuggler with a heart of gold. Those comparisons are
not far from the mark.

Do not mess with a raccoon and his Groot

The two computer-generated
Guardians, ostensibly the hardest sells of the cast, are both beautifully
rendered and surprisingly robust. Rocket Raccoon’s fur is lush and his swagger
is amusingly detailed while the space Ent Groot alternates between Wookie-esque
ferocity and moments of tenderness that will draw sighs of empathy from the
audience (which the film knowingly exploits for excellent comic effect). Groot
may have but a single line of dialogue, but he does more with that one
declaration than other characters have emoted through entire movies. It’s no
surprise that cottage industries based entirely on the creation of miniature Groots have already popped up all over the internet.

David Bautista capably provides
both the physical and emotional heft behind Drax the Destroyer, but the
character, as it’s written in the film, ends up being largely shunted to the
background. His comic counterpart is almost larger than life, famous for
single-handedly taking down Thanos (literally), but movie Drax is a taciturn
second-string tank. Since a sequel has already been green-lit and is slated to
hit theaters in 2017, perhaps we can see more comic-style Drax in the successor
volume.

Akin to Drax, Gamora gets glossed
over in the character development department. We see that she’s an adroit assassin with martial skills to spare and we’re given her direct tie to the
Titanian Eternal Thanos, but as Guardians moves into its second and third acts
she rapidly loses dimension. This is a woman who is purported to be the most
lethal in the galaxy and who not only seduced Tony Stark, but gave him cause to doubt his abilities as a lothario. We get almost none of that in Guardians. Moreover, the Gamora in the
film consistently makes numerous tactical errors that would be unheard of for her comic
counterpart. It’s not a complete deal breaker, so to speak, just a bit on the
disappointing side. As with Drax, we may get a more rounded Gamora in the
sequel.

The supporting cast is stocked
with a stunning number of big names. You may find yourself going, “Wait, isn’t
that…” Yes, yes it is. It is Glenn Close/Djmon Hounsou /John Reilly/ Benicio
del Toro, all of whom do not disappoint. Karen Gillian nearly steals the title
of lead villain from Lee Pace with her ferocious take on Nebula. Though her
delivery borders on shrieky a couple of times, Nebula comes across as the more
menacing and threatening force of darkness in the film.

It took 4.5 hours to apply this makeup to Karen Gillian

The visuals are rich with color,
a fever dream from the Hubble telescope, which lends a distinctly surreal,
comic-style backdrop for the action. Drinking it all in via the big screen is a
veritable feast for the eyes. Add to that a solid vintage soundtrack that will
elicit instant nostalgia and make even the surliest Zen Whoberi want to sway to
the beat.

It all speaks to the skills of
director James Gunn, who managed to make this ungainly property an improbably
consumable, laugh-inducing good time and it assuredly leaves us wanting more of
what Marvel can dish out. Bonus: so so so many easter eggs.

Hi everyone! The countdown to Gen Con now stands in the single digits. Single digits! That fact alone is making me do a little anticipatory dance in my chair as I type this. Alternatively, remembering that the Best Four Days in Gaming begins just over one week from now invariably results in this feeling:

If all goes according to plan, next week should feature at least the tutorial for how to make the Dr. Mrs. the Monarch costume, but there's a decent chance that there will be bonus entries on top of that. Fingers crossed that all the last minute preparations go reasonably well! In the meantime, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom!

The end of this year will also be the end of custody of the Star Wars licenses for long-time publisher Dark Horse. Marvel is already hard at work planning the release of its Star Wars related titles, including this forthcoming Vader-centric release.

Do you love Batman? Do you also happen to have a couple hundred thousand USD lying around? If you answered yes to both of those, feel free to participate in this auction of original file copies of the origins of the Dark Knight owned by Batman creator Bob Kane.

The Walking Dead is one of the most popular graphic novels on the market right now, but did the series have a medieval predecessor? The British Library believes it has found the forerunner of Kirkman's blockbuster property.

The most recent edition of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology contains this study detailing that participants in said experiment who read the Harry Potter series exhibited reduced levels of hostility and prejudice against historically marginalized groups when compared to their peers who had not read the books. In short, reading Harry Potter apparently makes you a better person.

There has been a fair amount of buzz surrounding the still-in-production Ant-Man movie. The latest rumor: that Ant-Man's wife, Janet (a.k.a. the Wasp) will not be included in the new Marvel cinematic canon.

While we're on a Marvel movies kick, this is a the Lego-ized version of the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy.

Industry insiders concede that PC games are 'decimating' their console competition. PC gamers are too engrossed to feign surprise.

Science/Technology

The concept of manufacturing a microwave-based drive for spacecraft has long been dismissed by NASA as an impossibility. On Friday, they recanted that stance and confirmed exactly what a microwave drive can potentially do.

What a microwave drive could look like

On Thursday, NASA provided a detailed list of exactly what will be headed up to Mars on the forthcoming Mars 2020 mission. This list gives us public viewers a reasonably good idea of what the priorities are for this next sojourn to the Red Planet.

Tuesday was the 99th birthday of Charles Townes, inventor of the laser. This is what the University of California at Berkeley and the town of Greenville, South Carolina did to honor their Nobel laureate progeny.